Navigation systems help vehicles and other vessels navigate to a desired destination and provide other navigation-related functions and features. For example, navigation systems typically evaluate various potential routes between a current or originating location and a desired destination and then recommend a particular route. A navigation system may then provide information about the optimum route, such as the turn-by-turn directions required to reach the destination. Navigation systems typically present a map to the user outlining the currently recommended route, the various turns required along the route, and, sometimes, the location of various features and points of interest along the route, such as gas stations, public transportation, emergency facilities, restaurants, hotels, and other businesses.
Navigation systems typically process a large database of roads and other geographic data to provide such functionality. The geographic data may comprise, for example, road locations, road limitations, such as turn restrictions and one way streets, address ranges for roads and information about points of interests.
While navigation systems have greatly improved the information that is readily available to a user and the ability to navigate to a desired location, they suffer from a number of limitations, which if overcome, could further improve their utility and reliability. For example, the geographic data that is processed by navigation systems may not be as accurate or up-to-date as more highly detailed maps. Thus, the maps and geographic information can be significantly different than the actual environment. This may be due, in part, to new construction or a reconfiguration of existing roads, which may not be reflected in the geographic databases for some time.
A need therefore exists for improved techniques for navigating a vehicle to a target address. A further need exists for more reliable navigation techniques that are resilient to imperfections in available geographic databases.